Hey again. This started as a letter to a friend of mine who will be headed this way in a few weeks …

I was about to call it a night and a mash of things took place. I was brushing my teeth and thinking; “when he arrives, should I tell him that the evening news is downloaded and watched at 9:30pm, the living room lights go off at 9:45pm, video streaming and computers start to shut off at 10pm, the hallway lights comes at 9:55pm and off by 10:15pm and then things start up automatically again in the morning with the computers waking up at 6am, the lights in the bedroom by 6:20 and in the office at 6:45am so on”. Then there is the fact that the drafty old farmhouse thermostat is set at 62 because much more is like watching money fly out the windows.

In the midst of all of this, something else hit me, a Beatles tune. I couldn’t even figure out which one. So I scrolled through the few Beatles songs on the iPod …because it’s obviously after 10pm and the majority of computer systems have already shut down. I didn’t find the one that I was thinking of but I hit “Dear Prudence” followed by “Eleanor Rigby”, “I am the Walrus”, and so on. It was cool.

Are we getting old ?

My routine is more routine and yet I don’t really mind it. My taste in music may be all over the map and yet I have discovered that the music of the 60’s was actually pretty good and there are even a bunch of stuff from the 70’s to discover. (I am still sane enough to not talk about the 80’s). Freddy Mercury was talented. Early Stones had less wrinkles. Frank actually could sing before he got the aura of a high class mob king pin.

Houses were stamped from cookies cutters. Fences where white. and streets were safe for playing stick ball and riding bikes. The president got in trouble. NASA went up in flames. Peace was in jeopardy. Politics became a chess (or pawn) game. Gas prices went through the roof. The war was unpopular. Japanese cars were king. The divide grew between the haves and the have nots. New drugs were highly desirable and the makers were criminal. TV was flexing its control over the ever more malliable consumer. There was talk of [the] U2 . The power of equality was spoken of in small towns across America.

They say everything that is old is new again. Are we getting old ? You tell me. I’m having a senior moment and don’t really care.